52. War

Chapter 52

War

Alluin had kept his word. The First Army had been readied before the destruction of Lyraniorn, and within two hours of the information reaching the Antlered Palace, every garrison across Stag Court had been notified by flicker-bird and mobilized. They were all leaving, with only the barest skeleton crews left behind, and the First Army was ready to march within the hour.

An army of the dead – an entire city of dead – could be faced by nothing less than every soldier that could be stripped from the garrisons of the Court. Even then, the chances of defeating such an army were grim, especially if the blood mage was present, and could use the pain and slaughter of the battlefield to raise more constructs.

But Stag Court had Dain. The armies had been given to him long ago, and he would not spend their lives recklessly. The monster of Stag Court, the man who had destroyed Phazikai, whose power waxed and waned with the seasons and the moon, maybe a demigod and certainly the avatar of Death he often appeared—he was the vanguard for the armies, and he would protect them. Our enemy hadn't taken him from us, and now he would face them on the battlefield.

I stood in the war room with him, and looked across the table at Alluin, his kind face hard and implacable. This was General Xilsatra standing across from me, and this was Crown Prince Sundamar standing at my left, the Stag Regent.

There, in front of the advisors to the Queen, Dain took off his coronet and handed it to me, and named me Stag Regent. Then he turned to General Xilsatra, his face calm and set with determination, and said, "Command me."

They left, and I proceeded to turn the Antlered Palace on its fucking head. The armies were going to face an unkillable foe, an enemy that needed to be obliterated to be defeated. Even with Dain's protection, from the grimness as Alluin and Dain had planned their attack, I knew that the armies were likely to face heavy casualties. They were ready to shoulder that burden, to defend their people to the death, and so the fucking courtiers would need to hold up their end of the bargain.

I was determined that no one who could be saved would die, and I sent my own flock of flicker-birds out with their royal decrees. Every viceroy, every marquess, every lord and every lady received their commands. Their palaces and their manors were to be opened to the soldiers. Whatever was needed – food, supplies, assistance – they were to provide. Everyone within a two-day march of the line between us and Lyraniorn was to immediately begin preparing hospitals, and every healer with any experience with the kinds of wounds someone might get on a battlefield was to go populate those fucking hospitals, or go to the front lines.